1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information processing apparatuses and methods. More specifically, the present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, and information processing method, and a program for executing the information processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a type of printing system that has been proposed, when print data is transmitted from a server or a client to a printing apparatus, in order to simplify routine tasks, print data is input to a hot folder. A hot folder refers to a folder for which print-setting information, such as page layout and print-sheet size, is set in advance. For example, a file that serves as print data is saved in the hot folder by a drag-and-drop operation. When a monitoring program detects the input of the print data, a job for the print data is automatically registered. In this application, a hot folder is sometimes also referred to as a control folder.
Furthermore, according to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-118095, it is possible to set a rule as to which printing machine is to be used according to the data format of document data input to a hot folder, and also to set a rule as to whether the document data is to be printed immediately or to be registered as a job. Furthermore, according to the description, it is possible to set a plurality of rules for a single hot folder.
According to the techniques described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-118095, it is possible to change the output device used according to the data formats of individual pieces of document data input to a hot folder. However, it is not possible to vary the output format of printed materials among the individual pieces of document data. That is, according to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-118095, when a plurality of pieces of document data of the same data format are input to a hot folder, it is not possible to set print settings so that the individual pieces of document data are output in different formats. For example, when a plurality of pieces of print data are merged and bound into a single book, a certain piece of data is printed as a cover sheet, and another certain piece of print data is printed as Chapter 1 of the body. Also, it is possible that some pieces of print data are printed to tab sheets. When a plurality of pieces of print data are used to yield an output as described above, it is expected that in addition to varying the layout or the order of printing among the individual pieces of print data, the type of sheet or the orientation of printing is varied so that various types of output can be obtained.
According to the techniques described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-118095, it is possible to save the entire data of a single document and to register the entire data as a single job. However, it is not possible to vary the output format among individual pieces of document data. Thus, in order to yield various types of output as described above, it is needed to create hot folders for the individual output formats. This is not efficient from the perspective of user operations.